


FKTD

by yukulele



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: M/M, Modern AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-23
Updated: 2013-02-25
Packaged: 2017-11-16 22:10:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/544383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yukulele/pseuds/yukulele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sinbad heads home one Friday night (intoxicated), nothing new, nothing spectacularly out of the ordinary until he meets a teenager with nothing but murder in his eyes and a provocative offer on his lips, and everything goes downhill from there (naturally).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Friday

**Author's Note:**

> Modern AU, details, ratings, language subject to change.

The sidewalk was a lot friendlier sober, Sinbad decided as he recovered from his fourth close call, navigating the busy streets of the city at night, taking care to not attract much attention- he didn’t need another citation for public drunkenness or Ja’far was definitely going to put him on probation. And he certainly couldn’t have that, although it would be funny to see his reaction... but still, not quite worth it.

He apologized as he clipped a hurried woman at the corner, as he turned to have his shirt sleeve abruptly.

“Hey mister, let’s have some fun!”

Sinbad narrowly avoided tripping over the curb as a thin, black haired boy pulled him off the street with nothing but ill intent in his eyes- a demonic red gaze, probably contacts, kids these days. Was he even a boy, his senses muddled and distracted by the impressively long braid that hung down past his hips.

“Listen, I don’t want whatever you’re on, thanks,” he said as resolutely as he could through his intoxication, but that hand was like a vise around his wrist. He couldn’t do anything with his other, gripping his briefcase which would be an offense worthy of beheading if he lost it. And that’s how he was led into an alley, tripping over his feet in the darkness.

“Nothing like that, c’mon, let me give you a taste... or you can give me one, if you like,” he said, pulling at his belt, nails raking the smooth leather.

“Seriously kid, back off-”

“That’s not what this is telling me,” he murmured, sinking to his knees on the cold pavement, yanking down the zipper with a firm tug. “Don’t worry, I won’t charge anything~” he said, his breath warm in the chill autumn air, tangible against the fabric of his briefs. “Just maybe, everything.”

“There he is!”

Several figures came down the entrance of the alley, clearly not random passerbys.

Sinbad swore, moving with pure reflex, one hand pulling his fly up while the other swung his briefcase into the face of the first oncoming assailant, making contact with a satisfying snap. He drove his fist into the gut of the second, dodging the gleam of metal that came rushing up towards him from the third. Knives. Awful things. The next slash bit into the surface of his briefcase, as Sinbad knocked him down with a punch to the throat.

Three men down after at least twice as many shots, not bad for a Friday night, he mused, although he didn’t have much time to waste. They were already getting their bearings, so he grabbed the teen who had flattened himself against the brick during the scuffle by the hair amidst his protests, and ran headlong back into the main street before hailing a taxi frantically.

“Hey, let go of me you fucker, I’ll fuck you up I swear, on my fucking li-”

“Just get in, “ he ground out, shoving him into the backseat of a cab. “Sorry for my nephew’s rudeness. Sixty-eighth and Main, please.” he said, finding a hundred to pass to the driver.

“I’m not your stinking nephew you bastard-mphhh...”

Sinbad clapped a hand over the lower half of the foul mouthed teen’s face, effectively muffling the rest of his complains. “Keep quiet and I won’t have this taxi take us straight to the police, where I am sure they will be thrilled with your attitude. And your attempted baited mugging,” he hissed, thankful for the relative short trip to his apartment and the cooperation of the taxi driver. As they pulled in front of the Regal, he thanks the driver and marched him through the front doors, past the doorman who didn’t even bat an eye.

“Evening, sir.”

“Lovely weather.”

A short trip across the foyer into the steel and glass elevator, with the boy struggling the whole while to break his grip, muttering profanities as they went. But for the rent he paid on the place, no one asked any questions. After tapping out the door key, he pushed the delinquent in over the threshold and let the door lock shut behind them.

“Now, care to explain yourself?”

“Eat a dick.” He charged at him, trying to break past him to the door. Sinbad caught him by the shoulders, receiving a quick series of punishing blows to the ribs before managing to shove him out into the living area.

“I don’t think they teach you MMA in juvie,” he said grimly, hooking a leg behind him and bringing him down on the hardwood while he yelped in pain.

“Don’t know why a salaryman would need judo,” the teenager sneered back.

“Well, it came in handy didn’t it?” Sinbad fireman carried him to the guest room, before dumping him unceremoniously on the bed.

“Hey, what are you-”

“No charge you said, right?” Sinbad quipped, pulling up the edge of that black athletic shirt, exposing an unmarred and toned abdomen.

“Get off me you fuckin’ perv-”

“You were so exceptionally eager to offer yourself back in that alley-”

“Let go-”

“What could have changed, I wonder?”

“I said get your hands off- why are you laughing!”

He couldn’t help it. Perhaps it was the adrenaline mixed with the alcohol, of escaping a near gang mugging, to the boy’s panicked face, indignant and pink to the tips of his ears, clearly nothing more than a dumb brat- it was too much. He clutched his stomach till his mirth subsided, before getting off the bed, shaking his head in dismay.

“Stay there, don’t break anything, I’ll deal with you tomorrow,” he said, before exiting, with another soft click as it locked from the other side. Judal leapt up after him, his fists connecting with only solid wood as he kept pounding, a seamless string of expletives at his disposal.

Indignation and rage burned beneath his skin- how did everything go so horribly wrong? It was supposed to be a simple operation, just like the others. Grab the mark, hold him still till the muscle arrived, get the goods and get the fuck out. Typically Judal didn’t even stick around for the shakedown, preferring to get a snack somewhere nearby till he was picked up, but it had just moved all too quickly in that alleyway. Who expected some lameass salaryman to fight like that, much less grab him and then effectively kidnap him and leave him locked in what looked more like a freakin’ five star hotel than someone’s spare bedroom.

Disregarding the man’s last orders, he knocked the lamp off the side table out of spite, relishing the satisfying shattering sound. Then he patted his pockets, finding his phone- his only real link out- was gone. Suddenly the whole groping episode made a lot more sense, as he found his knife was gone too, which he kept in the waistband of his shorts, and his urge to kill reached new heights that night. 

Ignoring the sting of his raw knuckles, he curled up on that ridiculously ostentatious bed, which smelled like lavender or something equally gay, and fell in a fitful sleep, swearing he’d wake before that idiot and make him pay the minute the door opened-


	2. Saturday A

Sinbad woke to the buzz of his phone, the screen lighting up in the pre dawn darkness, singeing his aching eyes.  
  
“‘Ello?”  
  
“Sin! You said you’d go straight home after the party-”  
  
“I _did_ -”  
  
“-and that you’d call so that I’d know you didn’t fall asleep on the street-”  
  
“-when have I ever-”  
  
“- _like you did last week._ ”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
The exasperation was audible although Ja’far had learned to quell his sighs over the years.  
  
“Think of what it does to our shares, when that stuff pops up on the tabloids-”  
  
“Don’t worry, seriously, I got home but I just forgot to call.” Which was the legitimate truth, just minus some of the peculiar middle details. He didn’t need to worry his assistant like that, who always had enough on his plate with managing him and internal affairs as well. It’s just that he was damn good at it. Looked damn good doing it too- he switched his train of thought back to the track on the phone, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he automatically acquiesced to anything Ja’far demanded and/or reminded him of, as long as it could be taken care of on Monday. It was the weekend, and he wanted to spend the weekend relaxing. Which would be much easier if there wasn’t an infernal pounding on the doors oh shit oh shit that kid was still here-  
  
“Sin? Sin, what’s that sound?”  
  
“It’s the takeout guy. I’ll talk to you later. Thanks.”  
  
He tossed the phone on the sofa before knocking on the guest bedroom door until the pounding stopped.  
  
“I’m coming in-”  
  
Sinbad opened the door with a reasonable amount of apprehension, but was unprepared for the what met him when he entered. Perhaps it was something about the watery daylight, or the puffy red rimmed eyes of the boy from last night, but he felt inexplicably guilty at the sight- which didn’t make any sense because it’s not like he’d done anything wrong, right?  
  
“Er... Good morning...kid....”  
  
“I have a name you know.” He sat, perched on the edge of the bed like an oversized bird, knees drawn up to his chest defensively, his words bitter and sharp.   
  
“And that is...?”  
  
“Judal.”  
  
“Uh... Hope you learned your lesson then, Judal... about mugging... so... ready to leave?” He expected the teen to bolt, or at least throw a few more creative profanities for his trouble- what he certainly did _not_ expect was for him to ask if he really had to go back.  
  
“What?”  
  
“I said... Do I really have to go back... to that place,” he whispered, forcing Sinbad to get closer to try and make out his words, uttered between shaky breaths.  
  
“What, sick of your third rate gang? Go back to your folks then-”  
  
“I’ve never even met my parents,” he retorted, grabbing the front of his shirt for emphasis. “They make me do this you know, trick people and hurt people- do you think I ever asked for this life?!”  
  
“Hey, calm down, we’ll get it sorted out...” Sinbad faltered- threats he could deal with, violence was no stranger, and cunning plays- well, these were in his every day, in the boardroom or otherwise. But tears? Tears were rarely pulled at mergers and in his personal life he’d been lucky enough not to have to deal with too many meltdowns- not to mention, that was what HR was for, right?  
  
So here in his guest bedroom with an unstable teenager whose expression was quite frankly, painful to watch, scrunched up with adolescent angst and darker lines, lines that spoke of experiences grown men would flinch at, he was doubly at a loss.   
  
“How do you think it feels to be a tool, used everyday by people who literally don’t give a shit about you?” Judal’s teeth go sharply into his bottom lip as the words spill out, as if trying to hold back the rest. He was nose to nose with Sinbad now, who could only gape at the streaks of tears on that bone china face, dripping off the point of his chin.  
  
“L-listen, it get’s better...”  
  
“How?! I have nobody.”   
  
The teenager buried his face against Sinbad’s chest, shoulders trembling, and he caught the whiff of what must have been his shampoo, fruity and cloyingly sweet.   
  
“Well, you have me now.”  
  
“R-really?” Judal hiccuped theatrically, pulling away with one hand securing his grip on Sinbad’s shirt and the other darting into the folds of the covers, drawing the shard of the shattered lamp he had tucked away. “...Good, I was almost worried you had a brain.”  
  
Sinbad swore, shoving the boy away from him but it was too late, the wicked edge of the glass slicing through fabric and skin and sinew as Judal slashed in a wide arc, before springing off the bed and bounding out the door with a manic laugh, leaving him with nothing but a red warmth spreading beneath his fingers.   
  
“Fucking kids these days.”  
  
\--  
“What did you do _this_ time?”  
  
“I show up to your door bleeding and that’s what you ask first?”  
  
“Just shut up and come inside,” Ja’far hissed, already pulling out the well stocked medical kit from his closet. It never hurt to be prepared for anything, and with Sinbad, one might as well try to prepare for everything.  
  
“And take your shirt off.”  
  
Sinbad obeyed silently, wincing as he dropped the bloody shirt in the kitchen sink before taking a seat on the stool opposite Ja’far, who sat waiting with a threaded suturing needle. He never asked Ja’far specifically where he learned half the things he knew how to do, only that he was grateful when it came to be needed.  
  
“So, what did you do?” he asked again, cleaning the ragged gash that ran in a diagonal along Sin’s right side. His voice was a steady as his hands, but something very angry was already beginning to thrash at his insides at the sight.  
  
“Why do you think I’m somehow responsible? I’m a target of many an ill intentioned villain you know!”  
  
“And if it had been one of those ill intentioned villains, you’d have gone to the hospital I’m sure. If you’re coming to me it’s either for counsel or off the record healthcare.”  
  
“Why can’t it be both-ow, be gentle!”  
  
“If you wanted bedside manner, you should have gone to the clinic,” Ja’far shot back briskly, expertly stitching the shallow gash without paying Sin’s complaints any mind. But he kept talking to him, distracting him from the discomfort of the needle passing between his skin as he kept count mentally: fifteen, sixteen, and not even halfway done.  
  
“What did the other guy get you with, a broken beer bottle?”  
  
“Shattered remains of my lamp, actually.”  
  
“Sounds like you to bring trouble home.”  
  
“Things have been really boring with you late-yow, sheesh, I’m sorry...”  
  
The jab of the needle had not been accidental, but rather a warning not to tread into conversation topics they had mutually agreed to keep closed. It was much better this way, Ja’far reasoned, but it didn’t change the fact Sinbad was so capable- rather, he excelled at indiscretions that in the long run it hardly mattered. Around the twenty second stitch, Sin finally broke, detailing the bizarre and retrospectively hilarious details of the previous night.  
  
“You brought him to your _apartment_? Are you insane?”  
  
“It just... happened, okay,” Sinbad protested, “Must have been the alcohol, y’know?” But it was more than that, it was red eyes in the darkness, it was an intelligent but cruel expression framed by soft black hair, it was-  
  
“There, keep it clean and don’t think about going after that kid. You don’t need more trouble in your life.”  
  
“But trouble is how I made it this far, isn’t it?” Sin smiles and it’s embarrassing how it lights up the room, even with thirty something stitches in his side and a penchant for picking up youths in unfortunate circumstances.  
  
Hell, that was how they met, wasn’t it?  
  
“I’ll see you later, Sin. And make sure to check your email.”  
  
“Roger that.” He left in a spare shirt in his size (of course Ja’far would have one), already on the line with an expert who luckily also happened to be on his payroll.  
  
“Hey, Yamraiha? I need a favor...”


	3. Saturday Part B

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am a scumbag. I know what I've got probably isn't even worth the wait (if anyone waited...) because I changed a lot of stuff. Like every month I'd rewrite this and I was never happy with it and recently I came to terms that I never will be, but at least I've plotted it till the end and I'm going to just roll with that.

It was a nice apartment- not as nice as his, but definitely more showy, with all manner of expensive knick knacks strewn about on polished oak shelves.And while the decor may have been just a bit off kilter, it didn’t make the plush armchair Sinbad chose to wait in any less comfortable, as somewhere the clock struck five and the handle of the front door turned.

“Nice place you’ve got here.”

“Fuck- why the hell are you here?” 

It had been worth the somewhat excruciating climb up the fire escape to break in through the kitchen window to see Judal’s expression, disbelief muddled with indignation.

“It wasn’t easy you know, but made possible by this,” Sinbad explain, tossing the teenager’s cellphone at him. It was lucky he had resources at his disposal to trace the number and the address it was mailed to, although who footed the bill was a surprise, to say the least.

“But it created more questions than real answers- like why you’re on the payroll of Kou Enterprises.”

Judal pocketed the phone without a reaction, although at the name of the multi-national corporation he saw a petulant sneer blossom in his face. “It’s none of your business, but if you know what’s good for you, Sinbad, I’m sure you’ll bugger off now.”

“Oh, I see you looked me up too.”

“I did, congratulations on making it to the Fortune 500,” Judal said with mock awe, slow clapping for effect. “But your company is still small time. You wanna play in the big leagues? You’re going to need me.”

Sinbad couldn’t help but laugh at first, it was too ridiculous to process. But something about the way Judal said it, with zero room for doubt and a hundred percent conviction was chilling.

“What exactly are you to them?”

“Their most valuable asset.”

The words came with a proud toss of his head, even as those red eyes still gleamed with a twist of madness. 

“Forgive me if I find it hard to believe that’s the reason Kou keeps one who doesn’t even look old enough to drink legally.”

“Coveted, not kept,” Judal corrected him, bristling ever so slightly.

“Then who are your keepers, may I ask?”

“No one,” Judal huffs, spinning away from to grab a nectarine from the ornate fruit bowl on the bar, tossing it high in the air and catching it while staring at Sin across the living room. “No one keeps me.”

There’s a big a lie as I ever saw one, Sinbad thought to himself, although it might just be a matter of the bars being so heavily gilded that the cage had started to resemble a luxurious apartment in uptown before long.

“If no one keeps you, then why are you helping them?”

“Because I want to, stupid CEO. I saw something that could be great, and I made it so. How else do you think Kou rose so fast in recent memory?”

“Nepotism?” Sin offered, relaxing now that it didn’t seem like Judal was too threatened by his forced entry, at least not enough so to call his handlers. He seemed a lot less dangerous now that he wasn’t wielding anything sharp- yet he had the looming sense that even ‘less dangerous’ for Judal was still ‘fairly fucking dangerous’.

Judal laughed, and shortly afterwards wondered when the last time someone had amused him so. Years? Centuries? It had been a while, to say the least. “Inbreeding hasn’t been in vogue for a while, so they decided to modernise.”  
“They decided to use you?”

“No one uses me, fuck, why aren’t you listening, you neanderthal,” Judal growled, but Sinbad cut him off.

“You are being used, and you’re going to see it sooner or later but I’d rather have it be sooner.” Although, right now would be good too, he figured. 

“Why? What’s it to you?”

“You said it yourself- my company needs you.” Sindria Ltd. was fast growing but it lacked... whatever it was that created true multinationals like Kou Enterprises or Reim, and it had been a sore point of board meetings for several quarters now. “And I want to work with you on my terms.”

“What’s wrong with my terms?”

Have you read the business sections of a newspaper any given month of the past two years, Sinbad wanted to ask so badly but he held back. The stories of the layoffs, the restructuring, the buyouts- and that didn’t even touch on the purported atrocities overseas- were warning enough. But Sinbad saw a chance here, and damned if he wasn’t going to take it.

“Too narrow. You’re missing opportunities of growth and expansion by working with such myopic salesmen. We can do greater things, you and I, and I promise you you won’t have to stand around on street corners baiting drunks.”

Judal pouted. “I do that for fun.”

Of course you do, Sinbad grimaced internally, but it was nothing he couldn’t work on. “So?”

“You’re funny,” Judal announced, leaning up on the balls of his feet to close the gap. His mouth was sweet and sticky, but his kiss was messy and selfish, pulling at his lower lip with his teeth and a satisfied smile.

“What was that? Have some sedative in your lipgloss or something?”

“What, do you think you’re in a Bond movie or something?” he smirked, reaching up to clasp his hands behind Sinbad’s neck, drawing him closer. 

“I’m surprised you’re that culturally literate-”

“Oh just shut up-”

Sinbad did as requested, attention back on that mouth while the wheels turned, a strategy falling into place. A hormonal teenage genius was tantamount to a hormonal teenage idiot when it came down to it- or up to it, he figured, smiling against Judal’s mouth as he got the boy on sofa, his hair blending with the jet black leather as the color rising in his face stood out all the more.

Judal’s habit- or rather life motto had always been raise- and keep raising, because no matter how high the stakes were he held the best cards. And he’d expected the other man, to fold long before it got to the point where he was half naked on his own couch, making an embarrassing manner of noises as Sinbad took his cock in his mouth without another word. Judal squirmed and fidgeted, well informed that this was a thing people did but only now becoming aware that it felt really fucking good.

It’s just he’d never been touched like this- touched at all, really, although there had always been the option of being ‘serviced’ he found the idea of contact with a stranger to be so repugnant he kept to himself and the internet, but here he was, thrusting clumsily only to have his hips pinned back against the seat.

“Have a little patience,” Sinbad chided, running his tongue slowly from the base up, not surprised in the least when greedy hands grabbed at his hair, forcing his mouth back down on his cock. Teenagers really were predictable, mad geniuses or not, he mused, accommodating him easily.

Patience was low on Judal’s list of virtues, but he could admit he wanted to let it drag on a little longer, and it would have if Sinbad hadn’t started to rub that spot, right below the edge of the tip with his tongue, lips tight against his skin, the warmth and wetness drawing out his his climax in a rush- no warning besides the sudden tightness in what felt like every muscle in his body.

Judal was half asleep and utterly useless before he even finished cleaning off the boy, laid out like a lanky housecat- a housecat far too thin for his age (eighteen at least, Sinbad presumed incorrectly), noting the fineness of those pale legs. Either way, unless he wanted to carry Judal down the fire escape and rip out all his stitches, he was out of luck till the kid woke up and he could straighten out the details. Ja’far never failed to remind him of his habit of putting pleasure before business, but what could you expect from a man who ordered dessert first without fail.

Not to mention the carpeting was obscenely plush, and he was really going to have to get the number of whoever decorated the place because he could really fall asleep right here...


	4. Sunday

Sunday  
Sinbad had honestly intended it to just be a nap, but when the slam of a door woke him abruptly, it was already half past three in the morning. Swearing, he peered in the semi darkness for Judal, finding the living room quite empty. Voices, rising higher in volume and emotion drifted down the tiled hallway.  
  
“Why the hell do you think you can just come up here?” Judal planted himself in the foyer, hair mussed from sleep but every other edge of him sharp as broken glass, his displeasure at his late night callers dripping from every word. “I thought I said under no circumstances is anyone to bother me in my personal residence.   
  
“I got orders, alright, the Director wants to talk to you about Sinbad.”  
  
“You mean that fucker who kidnapped me the other day? Yeah, thanks a fucking lot for helping me out with that one,” Judal sneered, arms akimbo as he hoped in the back of his mind that Sinbad was already climbing back down the fire escape in case he actually had to let these low lifes in. He’d never had someone come up to his very door like this, and as much as he hated it, he hated the prickling feeling that Sinbad’s words might have had some weight to them even more. “Just get the hell out of here already. I’ll come by when I’m damn ready.”  
  
“They want to see you now.”  
  
“I just said I don’t give a-”  
  
What he wouldn’t give for his briefcase, Sinbad thought briefly as he charged, as quietly as one could, lunging at the man who began to make a grab for Judal. They went down hard on the marble but his opponent was recovering faster than him.  
  
“Judal, run for it!”  
  
He barely managed to get the words out when he saw the teenager come up out of his peripheral vision, hefting a jet statuette and bringing the base down on the head of the pinned man.  
  
“Hey! What are you doing?!” Sin exclaimed, grabbing Judal’s arm before he could swing down again. “You’ll kill him!”  
  
“Great, that was what I was going for,” he seethed, a firestorm of violence raging in his eyes. “Now let go of me-”  
  
The footsteps and the voices were louder now, meaning they had company.  
  
“C’mon, we’re getting out of here.”  
  
“Over my dead body!” Judal shouted defiantly.  
  
It’s gonna be my dead body at this rate, Sinbad thought as he snatched the bloodied statuette from the boy and hurled it at the first man through the door. His stitches were most definitely torn now, but there wasn’t time to think about that as he got up, driving his fist into the gut of the next assailant. He could tell he was losing strength in his arm and so failed to bring him down, instead resorting to putting his guard up at the cost of losing ground.  
  
He saw Judal race ahead, a lithe blur of severe blows to the tenderest parts of anatomy. The skinny bastard was vicious and Sin was just glad not to be fighting him at the moment- at the same time the guys didn’t expect to be attacked by one of their own. Once they caught on it was a matter of surrounding him and forcing him back with Sinbad. Pushed back to the living room, the fading sun filtered in through the wall of windows, half blinding them all.   
  
Judal wasn’t doing much better, even with his speed and natural proclivity of inflicting pain, his impractically long hair betrayed him by making it an easy grabbing point. Two had him on the ground in a flurry of curses and kicks, and Sinbad was still fighting his own front.   
  
Sinbad contemplated the difficulty of hurling a grown man through glass, and decided it was not worth the impossible effort. It was all he could do to keep out of the range of the blade in the hand of his attacker, but his heel caught on the edge of a damnable expensive looking throw on the floor, knocking him off balance and into the arc of the knife as he went down, the breath knocked out of him as he hit the ground.  
  
And something- or someone had apparently knocked the life out of their attackers. By the time he managed to pull himself back up, the men were dead- headshots, three for each of the holes in the windows and Judal was brushing himself off nonchalantly.  
  
“What was that?”  
  
“Hell if I know,” he replied blithely. The complete lack of surprise that registered on Judal’s face was unnerving, to say the least. “But I’d get out of view of the windows if I were you.”  
  
Sinbad agreed, dripping blood and getting all of  three steps before a wave of lightheadedness made his knees buckle. He couldn’t have lost that much blood, he thought faintly as Judal cursed and pulled at him, showing an uncharacteristic amount of concern for getting him to move.  
  
“Call 911.”  
  
“Yeah right I’m letting an ambulance near here,” Judal griped, continuing to prod him into the elevator, jabbing the close door button repeatedly. “Your friend can take you to the hospital.”  
  
“My what?”   
  
“Yeah, your buddy who ruined my carpeting.”  
  
Judal might as well have been trying to explain discrete maths for all Sinbad could comprehend between the acute blood loss and the peculiar circumstances.  
  
“I don’t know what you’re-”  
  
“Right, so, just... chill here, okay?”  
  
“This is the dumpster.”  
  
“Yeah no shit, you’ll be found soon... probably. I’ve got some stuff to take care of, y’know? Like the carpeting, shit that’s never going to come out is it...” In an honest contest of which Judal was more concerned about, his upholstery of Sinbad’s impending death it would be too close to call. The teenager disappeared back into the building without even a glance back, muttering to himself about calling meetings and interior designers. But considering what Sinbad had (somewhat inadvertently) put the boy through, perhaps this was in his own twisted and abrasive way, his best idea of ‘help’.  
  
Speaking of, was there going to be any? Sin could only hope, slumped over what felt like a trash bag of discarded wine bottles, eyes drifting closed as dusk fell and his phone vibrated incessantly in his breast pocket.  
  
On the other hand, maybe there was no point in hoping for rescue because regardless, Ja’far was going to _kill_ him.  
  
\--

  
When he opened his eyes, he found himself thankfully in his own bed, in his own room. If not for the rippling aches when he tried to sit up, he could have pretended everything else had been a dream. Would he be so lucky.  
  
“Oh, you’re up, good.”  
  
The only person Sinbad trusted and expected to be at his side was there, flipping the lid on his tablet case shut.   
  
“Yeah, I’m up... How did I make it back here?”  
  
“Well, it wasn’t easy but through a fortuitous turn of events, you were found and you pulled through, despite your injuries.”  
  
“It wasn’t that bad then, huh?”  
  
“No, it was pretty bad,” Ja’far replied flatly, although he could probably could never express exactly what mixture of feelings had welled up at the sight of Sinbad bleeding out in a back alley, but it was an extremely volatile combination of anger and fear. but it wasn’t what Sin needed to hear right now, and it wasn’t what he should be dwelling on- for now, anyway. “At any rate, seeing how you were stabbed twice in a weekend, should I be looking into upgrading your life insurance policy?”   
  
“Very funny Ja’far- let’s see how many jokes you can crack with multiple puncture wounds.”  
  
“Too bad they missed your head, because you would have been absolutely fine then seeing how you don’t even keep your brain in there. What on Earth were you thinking- let me rephrase that, what sort of gut feeling did you move on, since your rational brain was clearly non functioning.”  
  
Sinbad fell silent, even for all the excuses he had prepped since Friday evening, nothing was coming to him. It wasn’t that he was afraid to tell Ja’far- the man probably had all the details somehow already, but it was he himself who couldn’t put it all into words. How does one weigh ambition with compassion, the need to own as much as the need to help, no matter the situation?  
  
“I just wanted to help our company.”  
  
“I know you do, but we don’t need to fall in with their crowd to succeed, you know.”  
  
“Yeah, I do, but that’s why I wanted... to bring them to our side instead. I saw an opportunity and took a stab at it.”  
  
“And it saw fit to stab you back. Repeatedly.”  
  
“Well, lesson learned I guess?” Sinbad offered, although there wasn’t an alternative really. He very much doubted he would be seeing that enigmatic boy very much after this past debacle, and while he acknowledged his well being was probably far safer that way, it didn’t stop him from remembering those rivers of black silk, coming loose from an impressively long braid. He had to get it out of his head though, for his sake and everyone else’s. Ja’far was back on his tablet, probably already scheduling when Sinbad will get his stitches out, his young brow furrowed in a deep concentration. It was selfish of him, he knew, that he had wanted that power so badly, but something about watching Ja’far work helped ground him like nothing else. His countenance was always so poised, yet ready for anything, and Sinbad missed just watching him practice on the range... which reminded him-  
  
“Thanks for saving me- again.”  
  
“Well, it would have been in poor taste to let you bleed out in the gutter like that.”  
  
“No, I mean saving me before that,” Sinbad said in a low tone, “I think there are about five people alive who could have pulled shots like that from such a distance.” And three were retired and one was hopefully still in China. But he could finally relax now that the last pieces of the puzzle had clicked into place, and he felt pretty damn lucky on the whole.  
  
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, but as you know from practicing with me that my marksmanship has always been excellent, so in that case, you’re very welcome. And I get your parking space for a month.”  
  
“A week.”  
  
“I spared the boy.”  
  
“Fine,” Sinbad assented, already making plans to just sleep under his desk instead of going home in that case. But it was a nice smile they shared, just a little conspiratorial, like the old days. It made him nostalgic, which made him feel old which was rather unpleasant but balanced out by his relief at being alive, so he simply slipped back to sleep, and that was all they said about that.


	5. Monday (epilogue)

It was Monday and his inbox tray looked like a small paper avalanche across his desk. Ah, it was going to be a long day. He had asked for a short reprieve, in light of his injuries but Ja’far said he needed a doctor’s note and so he was deterred. At least Ja’far could have given him a half day... He’d barely opened an envelope when a ruckus broke out outside his office.

“You can’t ride that in here-“

“Who are you?!”

Sinbad would have normally gone out to investigate, but he figured this would be the one time the people he paid to handle things, will handle things.

Brakes screeched outside his door and he realized he would not be so lucky judging by black haired teen perched on the seat, waving at him through the glass partition. Sinbad had no choice but to come out and meet him.

“Yo, Sinbad.”

“What the hell, Judal?”

“Glad to see you made it,” Judal sneered, rummaging for something in the bag slung across his chest. “I thought about what you said to me, that day. About working together,”

Sinbad schooled his expression, trying to call the next thing he was about to say. If he was here to join them, would- could Sinbad accept him in good faith? He saw as plain as day the madness that lurked beneath the brilliance, the bloodlust layered with instability. Judal on their side could raise them up as quickly as he could bring it all down, a fluttering, crumbling house of cards. “So?”

“Well, that’s the funny thing, because you seemed pretty insistent that I join you… but that’s because you have all these people you care about right? You need to support them and without you this company will die and stuff. Very noble of you… but I think it’s a problem.”

“My company is a problem?”

“Yeah! Exactly,” Judal said, slapping a heavy sounding envelope into Sinbad’s hands. “That’s why I realized if we destroy your company we can take you instead. So you’re being sued. See ya, Chief Executive Idiot.”

The whole office, Sin included, gaped at the departing teenager, pedaling right between the cubicles, ringing the bell obnoxiously at the interns. Thank goodness Ja’far was out running a meeting because Sinbad knew for a fact he kept a gun in his desk drawer... 

It was going to be a very long week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hahah it's finally over! I hope some of you are relieved. I am truly truly sorry this took so long, because normally once I start something I rarely stall, but in this case I refused to let it die and kept beating at it until it turned into something.. well it turned into this. Really it was a matter of logistics, but I hope it was satisfactory, albeit in a roundabout way.


End file.
